Friday Five: Songs about Canada

Wednesday, July 1, was Canada Day. Hopefully by now you’ve all recovered from your raucous celebration.

Aside from watching Kids in the Hall and drinking mass quantities of Moosehead (or Tim Hortons coffee if that’s your drug of choice), what better way to honor our northern neighbors than with a list of some Canadian country artists singing about the country for which they stand on guard? Happy birthday, Canada. Thanks for all the good music…but you’ve got some explaining to do for Celine Dion.

• 5. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” – Gordon Lightfoot
  You just don’t get more country than a song about building a rail line. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” is a seven-minute epic detailing the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway during the late 19th century.
• 4. “Short Native Grasses (Prairies of Alberta)” – The Corb Lund Band
  Before they became Corb Lund and the Hurtin’ Albertans, they were merely The Corb Lund Band. This one from 2002’s Five Dollar Bill, which went gold. Of course, a gold record in Canada is only like 35,000 American records if we’re going by the exchange rate that existed seven years ago. Nevertheless, with lyrics like “The prairies of Alberta, they ain’t never hearda/The things that are keeping you down/And the short native grasses don’t care that the ashes/Of your dreams match their dry shade of brown” it’s easy to see why Lund is one of Canada’s most popular country singers.
• 3. “Alberta Bound” – Paul Brandt
  After watching the music video, which features gorgeous Canadian landscape, it’s pretty obvious why a person would want to be Alberta bound. Bonus: Brandt namedrops Ian Tyson, an amazing Canadian country singer (his song “Four Strong Winds,” voted the best Canadian song of all time, has been recorded by Jennings, Cash, and Neil Young).
• 2. “Oh Canada” – Kathleen Edwards
  Edwards doesn’t mess around here as she takes her countrymen to task for, well, doing stupid crap: racism, white flight, and, uh, non-carpooling. It’s an excellent roots rock song, but the lack of references to Marty McSorley keep “Oh Canada” out of the Number One spot.
• 1. “My Nova Scotia Home” – Hank Snow
  Snow’s been everywhere, man, but he still had a lotta love for the land of his boyhood (and that’s saying a lot, considering the hard times he experienced there): Nova Scotia is my sanctuary/And I love it so.”